#especially in a position where you don't know how people feel about being queer

[genderqueerdykes]

As an AMAB Transmasc who’s also transfem it’s just infuriating that people can be so cruel about us and about AFAB Transfems

as an intersex transfem & transmasc person, i wanted to say from the bottom of my heart that i absolutely despise how people treat you, and AFAB transfems. the entire point of the trans community is that we DON'T CARE about what genitals strangers have or were born with. but instead, we've turned it around and become so obsessed with genitals that we force EACH AND EVERY TRANS PERSON to disclose what genitals they have in order to be "allowed" to identify as trans.

like think about it. i was assigned male at birth. then my biological sex marker was switched to female, and i was forced on estrogen. as someone who realized it was transmasculine first and had to struggle to be seen as masculine and a man, how does your situation offend me at all? you're going through the exact same thing. you don't relate to cis masculinity or manhood. why do i care about what genitals or gender marker you were born with? i was assigned male at birth and identify as transmasc. being intersex is not what gives me "permission" to identify this way.

you're not "stepping on the toes" of AFAB and intersex transmascs. you're showing people that gender is so complicated that even people assigned a gender at birth can be divorced from that gender due to societal or personal factors. people forget that assigned gender at birth doesn't define how that person experiences gender in practice. if you feel that you are transitioning into or have had to transition into masculinity, then i believe you. you are. i don't know what you're experiencing. i have no right to tell you what your experience is. and no one else does, either

people are especially harsh on AFAB transfems because of misogyny. like it all boils down to misogyny. people DESPERATELY want to treat AFAB people like shit for any reason. by any means necessary. and of course, with that person identifying as feminine and/or a woman, that compounds it and makes it worse. people just let their misogyny run free and attack and insult that person and tell them they're too stupid to understand what they're experiencing like. people who behave this way: you're not slick. we can tell that you're wildly misogynistic.

you being transfem shouldn't cancel out your transmasculinity, either. i know people must look at you and just straight up ignore your transmasculinity, but they don't have the right to. you are allowed to be both transmasc and transfem at once, not that you need my permission. i hate that people are forcing you into a position where you can't even express yourself in the queer community without people literally attacking you and forcing you to divulge your assigned gender at birth.

i really need to stress that, again, we are literally the "we don't care what genitals you have/were born with" community... and now people are literally FORCING strangers to divulge what genitals they have. people are NOT concerned about the gendered experience you've gone through growing up. they're concerned about your genitals. and its fucking disgusting. i'm sorry you have to go through this. as an intersex transfemasc person, you have all of my support, and then some. y'all aren't hurting anyone. people are hurting you, and it's fucked that they just don't care.

[leapinarmadillo]

ohhhh. i forgot that people used to say michael was getting surgeries in order to look like diana ross. ugh. i don't think there's anything to that but............ugh.

[gayedmundo]

honestly for me, the frustrating thing isn't that people like buck and tommy as a couple. i don't personally get it, but to each their own! it's a pretty blank canvas of a relationship right now that you can project things onto and i know people are just excited about buck being in his first relationship with a man!

the frustrating thing is that people can't see the writing on the wall with very deliberate narrative positioning that is spelling out to everyone that tommy is not meant for buck. 911 isn't a subtle show and this is a crystal clear example of how any piece of media would write a temporary plot device relationship leading up to the endgame romance, but for some reason so many people can't see that and THAT is making me feel a bit crazy. because people will literally act like you are somehow "disrespecting a queer character/relationship" if you point out that it is being written as a plot device relationship. it's not disrespectful and tommy won't be offended by being called a plot device, this is fiction! it's just being familiar with how storytelling functions!

i want people to understand that eddie isn't just conveniently showing up in every buck and tommy scene out of his own free will, the writers put him there. it isn't a coincidence that in most of the scenes between them where eddie isn't there, he is mentioned in some way. tommy and their relationship isn't under-developed because they "don't have time" because if the writers wanted to prioritize that and progress their relationship, they would've done that more by now, even in small ways. it isn't a coincidence that tommy didn't dress up in an 80s theme while eddie matched with buck, the writers chose to contrast them deliberately. it isn't a coincidence that they wrote the episode where buck and tommy kiss for the first time in a way that leaves you wondering whether or not tommy was really the one buck wanted all along, especially with how aware the writers are of fans shipping buck and eddie for years now.

everyone is free to ship what they want! regardless of whether buck and tommy end up together, it's fine to write fanfic and think they're cute together. it's fine if you want to multiship, fandom is yours to engage with as you wish! i get that going against The Popular Ship and getting harassed for it has made some people want to commit to buck and tommy as a relationship, which bums me out a little as a buddie shipper but i do empathize with that perspective. however, outside of fandom dynamics, i do think understanding literary devices and the way that narratives are told is worth refreshing yourself on if you find yourself getting upset with people saying tommy is a plot device.

[lastoneout]

Honestly, I don't say it often bcs I know how this site is but I really do think for a lot of survivors of abuse, especially abuse that went on for years and years, sometimes the message "it's not your fault, you didn't do anything wrong/to deserve this" while ABSOLUTELY TRUE* isn't actually super helpful. For a lot of us there's a LOT of guilt tied into it, and even if things were truly out of our hands we will not be able to accept that we are truly blameless, at least not at first, and maybe for some of us not ever. So being told "no dw you didn't do anything wrong <3 <3 you're innocent" feels...idk like some toxic positivity style lies. It doesn't make me feel better, because I still do feel like there were things that happened that were my fault, that were in my control, even an ethicist or god or whoever could look me dead in the eyes, weigh all the facts, and assure me of my complete innocence, and I still wouldn't believe it. (Tbh, you have to be ready to forgive yourself and trying to force it early does more harm than good.)

And I occasionally see movies and shows and stuff get roasted all to hell for having the audacity to go with a different message, to offer abused characters not a platitude about how they are innocent and should forgive themselves asap, but instead say "so what if it was your fault? so what if you fucked up? you're still alive, you still have time, your mistakes(or perceived mistakes) don't make you irredeemable scum who deserves to suffer, it's okay that you fucked up, what matters is what you do next, and even if the horrible thing was your fault in one way or another or you did actually hurt people, you still did NOT deserve to be hurt in turn" because people think that is like, admitting that the person in question is at fault when they almost always aren't....but as an actual survior, I'm sorry, you can tell me I'm innocent till the cows come home and I won't believe it. What I need to hear is that even if it was my fault I didn't deserve to be treated that way. I still deserve help. I deserve to keep going. I am not forever stained by my mistakes. I deserve a future free from this pain.

I think before we look at things in this like...grand moral way where we try to make sure we're sending the most Correct and Healthy Message Possible, sometimes it's worth asking if that message is actually the one the people it's about need to hear. I'm sure for some people it is very freeing to be told it's not their fault, but that kind of message does not resonate with me. And I, as well as people like me, deserve to expirience stories about us that are cathartic, that resonate, that make us feel seen, and to not have to see everyone and their mom throw a fit because what helps us is "problematic".

Anyway this has been mulling around in my head for a while and I def have a lot more to say about the way guilt manifests in trauma born of abuse, but yeah I just feel like this is something that should be talked about when we bring up abuse narratives and how well written they are and if they send the Correct Message, because the "Correct Message" is never going to be the same for everyone. And that's true of ANY demographic you could choose to represent!

Like some disabled people might enjoy the "magically healed" trope while others find it offensive. Some trans people like stories where transitioning is easy as drinking a potion or getting a fancy futuristic surgery and some find that that trivializes their struggles. Some queer people want stories where there's just no homophobia at all, others find that a world without it feels fake and patronizing. Some women do want to read stories about how keeping hearth and home is noble and empowering and others want read about women who have other jobs and never have kids or get married. For some of us "you're beautiful no matter what" is lovely and some of us just want to be told being fat and hairy and having acne and scars and shit is normal and fine. Or, like the last post I reblogged says, sometimes "you're not a burden" doesn't hit as well as "being a burden isn't a bad thing". No one type of representation is ever going to work for everyone, and that doesn't mean one type of rep is objectively wrong and the other is objectively right.

So yeah, the next time you find yourself angry because you think a story is sending the wrong message about a marginalized or harmed group, maybe stop for a second to ask yourself if it's actually harmful...or if you're not the person who the story is speaking to, and if there's someone it is talking to who desperately needs to hear what it has to say.

(*Getting ahead of this now: Do not put words in my mouth. I am not saying that any abused person in any way deserved their abuse or was at fault for it happening, that is not up for debate. The fault is always in the hands of the person who chose to hurt them. I'm just saying it's nuanced and complicated and guilt is a huge fucking issue that survivors have to deal with all the time and it's not wrong to acknowledge that some of us are always going to feel like we did something wrong and not be eased by being told otherwise even if the person saying it is 100% correct and/or means well. I do not have time for people who are going to willfully misinterpret me. You will be blocked.)

[anxietycheesecake]

I'm sorry that you're being attacked and blocked for having valid criticisms. It's really weird to be new to this fandom and watch it go from a fairly positive space to fans being as nasty to each other as Star Wars fans in such a short period of time, especially when the crumbs people are cobbling together and calling a canonized ship is what we scrape for in other fandoms with ships we know will never be canon and we KNOW we're stretching the material we're given. I love my queerplatonic ships, found families, and platonic soulmates. I can absolutely enjoy Nandermo through that lens, but the gaslighting and mental gymnastics here is raising such a fucking eyebrow and you don't deserve to feel like you've done something wrong for recognizing it.

Being allosexual or alloromantic is as valid as being asexual or aromatic and it's actually so fucking unchill to conflate being gay or pan with being ace or aro just because they are all under the queer umbrella.

Ace =/= celibate, but half this fandom thinks Guillermo is a virgin and I can't help but think that's being bundled into the hot takes that are coming out right now when it's canon that he's uncomfortable due to being in the closet and his Catholic upbringing. Yes, he could be ace, but that means at best were batting 1/4 for aroace Nandermo.

Nandor has sex with Gail onscreen and is very clearly not ace. The vampires would have MINIMALLY mentioned Guillermo being a virgin and wouldn't have eagerly asked about his sex life in Atlantic City if they thought he was one and they practically have radar for it. He was panicking over Jeremy being a virgin and having brought him into the house and the only thing that saved the guy was losing his virginity. Nandor and Guillermo are both romantic in romantic relationships, and both are expressive about it and tell others they love them.

When you speedrun the entire series and the notable interviews with fresh eyes and not over a stretch of years the leap between 'My Nan- Master' vs. best friends, cuddling a Nandor puppet at night, the I'll make you a vampire speech vs. the vibe in the warrior speech is SO visible and it fits perfectly with Simms' public discomfort with fans shipping Nandor and Guillermo. He is openly uncomfortable with them being in a romantic relationship or having sex with each other and uses every homophobic gaslighting tactic in the playback when speaking about it.

“No, I do think there’s a small subset of very vocal people on Twitter who are like ‘We want to see Nandor and Guillermo hook up,’ and we’re always like, I think their love is bigger and more profound than that,” Simms said. “And also do you really want to see that? Do you?”

This is literally how straight people talk when they're uncomfortable with queer shit. What haven't we seen in this show other than that? Is Nadja and Laszlo's love lesser for it?

“Times that we’ve talked about it and explored it, the power dynamics seem so problematic,” Simms continued. “I mean, that’s his boss.”

In a show where the main couple started with nonconsensual sex (it's still noncon if it turns out that they could have had sex without hypnosis) and Laszlo fucks Colin Robinson after raising him for a gag. Sure, keep telling yourselves that the power dynamic is what makes Simms uncomfortable.

"I mean, it's a nice thought, for some...I don't know about these guys" Kayvan says as he nods toward Simms.

I've seen the Harvey interviews and talking heads from earlier seasons on the subject of Nandermo. The 2024 panel couldn't have been more different, and Harvey seemed completely subdued when the others were discussing Nandermo fanart and them being a ship.

This isn't a person who deserves applause for queer representation and it seems toxic af that Harvey has been stuck in a workplace where he has to hear this drivel when he's openly gay. Yes, I am side eyeing the fuck out of this and it's not because I'm crying over wanting my blorbos to smooch.

You can actually have a romantic pair not kiss or fuck or say I love you without pulling a very clear 'no homo.' That would have been totally fine, but they didn't do that. Copy and paste that scene into anything starring Andy Samberg, or literally anything bro centric and tell me it's a romantic love confession. Or rather, try taking it off tumblr and see if anybody thinks it isn't deep platonic male friendship.

It's okay for people to be upset when they've been hoodwinked. It's okay to separate fanon from canon and still enjoy your ships. But ffs stop gaslighting each other and saying non-romance is romance or that non-romance has more worth than romance and that people are shallow for not valuing it when that's not the problem people have with this, and when that isn't the bill of good audiences we're sold in earlier seasons.

The call is coming from inside the house it shouldn't be.

(Also SO sorry for how long this was).

Never apologize for articulating this better than I ever could. I'm too lazy to look for all the recipes I know are out there, so most of the shit I say is like "source: trust me bro"; I'm glad someone else did it.

The aspec thing makes me so mad because, as a writer, I'm always going out of my way to properly and respectfully represent aspec folks. Like, I've got two novels starring an ace woman and an aromantic man. Do I deserve a medal for that? Of course not! It should be normal. But it's kind of infuriating that people are willing to give aspec rep credit to a show just because it made two male characters stay platonic after teasing their relationship for years and call me aphobic for pointing out that's not the case.

[theforesteldritch]

This is going to be hard to articulate properly, but I feel like there's a strange phenomenon where some people will amplify intersex people on the topic of IGM and condemn IGM without issue (which, to be clear, in and of itself, is a good thing) but then are entirely ignorant to, sometimes because of genuine ignorance, but too often due to the equivalent of plugging their ears and going 'lalala I can't hear you', the issue of medical abuse when it comes to older intersex people. I saw someone once agreeing with how horrific and damaging IGM is- but then proceeded to essentially accuse intersex people of lying about our experiences of medical abuse in our teens and later, often when it comes to puberty. And unfortunately, a lot of this that I've seen comes from other queer people.

Which just. Is incomprehensible to me, mostly because I've lived through medical abuse based off of being intersex, but I think it speaks to the way people view victims of oppression and abuse. They want to be seen as allies, because they know that in terms of optics, it's bad to be silent on the oppression of other marginalized people, but they don't want to examine or even consider their own underlying biases and their intersexism.

Saying 'yeah, I'm against the medical abuse of babies', but ignoring what older intersex people face is seen as fine, because babies are almost treated as the perfect victims: victims of this systemic oppression, yet also fundamentally don't understand this oppression yet, because, well, they're infants. Babies are unable to express themselves (at least until said babies grow up), and so while everyone can agree that hurting babies is bad, those babies can't push back against other biases against intersex people that someone might have. You can, and have to, speak for babies, because they can't speak for themselves, but a baby also can't challenge intersexist beliefs the same way an older or adult intersex person can. It's easy to stand up for a group that can't tell you you also have the capacity to harm us.

And so when an older intersex person says, 'hey, this is medical abuse that I went through because I'm intersex', that statement is suddenly treated with doubt, especially when it someone challenges someone's worldview. 'I was forced on HRT as a teen and that was bad' becomes uncomfortable to condemn, because that's seen as something that could challenge, say, their experiences and access to HRT, and they're unwilling to think critically and look at that from a nuanced and deeper perspective: they see our fight against oppression as a challenge to their fight, ignoring that our underlying goals align: bodily autonomy and the right to informed, non-coercive consent. They can only see the issue from the perspective of someone who, say, wants to ban HRT, because they don't want to budge an inch to anything that 'validates' that take; they can only see 'medical abuse that I went through was bad and shouldn't happen' as 'See, this is why HRT is always bad and why this should be banned,' even though the same people who want to ban and restrict HRT also want the freedom to continue to abuse intersex people. It's a fundamentally defensive position that throws intersex people to the curb because people don't want to acknowledge and make space for nuance; it's considered too 'difficult'. 'I went through something bad because it stripped me of my bodily autonomy' is seen as 'I went through something bad and so I want to strip your bodily autonomy', and this fundamental misunderstanding and this caving to internalized bias against intersex people becomes a tool to attempt to try to better a perisex person's own material conditions on the backs of intersex people. It of course doesn't work, we're all crabs in a bucket fighting for air, but people don't seem to understand that, or they just don't care.

No one is immune to intersexism. You don't get to claim to be an ally when you'd try to drown the other crabs in the bucket to try and hope of being able to get more access to the air. But people don't want to confront or examine the fact that they're someone capable of harm, someone capable of expressing hurtful beliefs. And so it devolves into attempts to delegitimize anything anyone who tells you that you are in fact being hurtful.

[transfagore]

About the "love loses" discourse

One thing that enlightened me about this subject was realizing that people who don't think twice before declaring love a revolutionary feeling probably don't understand how to reject love it can be liberating. Not only for the aspec community, but also for neurodivergent people and anyone else who has been dehumanized for not feeling love properly or not feeling love at all. Believe me, rejecting society's idea of love is as liberating as changing the world through love. Considering love as this inherently potent and revolutionary force is not good for anyone. But it's terrible specifically for people who have been hurt in the name of love.

Okay, love is special to you. All good. Take it and transform the world your way. Just don't impose it on everyone. Because not everyone has this wonderful relationship with love. Not in a society that dictates how we should feel and punishes us if we don't follow the golden rules. Not in a world where people use a theoretically positive feeling to hurt other people.

Respect loveless people. Listen to us. You cannot change the world by neglecting and throwing away the parts of humanity that you don't like or aren't like you. Our criticism of love is not the demerit of your love.

(And before someone say "BUT LOVE WINS HAVE THIS HISTORICAL VALUE–" meu anjo i know I study my own community, thank you very much. I know about all this, that's not the problem. We are not denying this historical value or importance. "Love loses" is a response to having love imposed on us, especially in times of pride. Where even companies make it seem like being queer is all about “love wins”. When, it is not true at all.

And to those who are suggesting "platonic love wins" or any alternative, please go read the definition of loveless again ☠️)

[thekeeperof-thefandoms]

TW: sensitive topics

Adam slowly becomes more tolerate and less misogynistic over time via osmosis but won't admit it and instead hides it.

Adam thinks women bitch too much about the pink tax until he's sent out to get period products for Reader and Lute, only to realise that his cost of his shopping just doubled in price from just one pack.

Adam thinks women bitch too much about not being welcomed to normally male occupied spaces until he's playing late night online and hears a woman join only to leave after five minutes because everyone kept harassing them.

Adam hounds a girl for her number, thinking that he's so smooth for getting it in the end, but then decided to lose it after watching a film with Reader and Lute where it showed a girl terrified of what would happen if she didn't give a guy her number and hears Reader and Lute, two very capable women, talk about how they've been in similar positions.

Adam has done a lot of thinking lately.

Personally, I'd like to think that Heaven, while flawed, is above some of the nonsense like the pink tax. I do still think catcalling and being harassed happens, probably mainly in result to a lot of men modeling Adam's behavior.

But once he gets with you and you start calling him on his shit, and therefore Lute gets more comfortable calling him out, and especially after the period simulator, he's more aware of certain things.

I feel like eventually he'd ask you if this is how bad it is now, what did you do when you were alive? When you had to work constantly, sometimes 2 jobs at a time, just to afford basics. That's when you tell him you didn't really have a choice but to suck it up. That you weren't allowed to get a hysterectomy, you couldn't take sick days just for a period, and that most doctors wouldn't believe you anyway.

Especially if you're a trans person this is a big foot in the door to explaining how poorly women and queer people are treated. Hit em with the fact that religious nuts use Adam and God as examples for their behavior and he's going to feel physically sick. I think he'd have to take a few days to just be by himself and really think about how he acts and how people interpret that.

From there it's a slow build up to correcting his behavior. And it's not always gonna be easy. He's going to be defensive, he'll tell you that you're overreacting and that him persistently following a girl around to ask her for her number repeatedly isn't bad, it shows he's interested. He's a nice guy.

Tell him that's what other men thought too until "insert any woman you can think of who was assualted".

Lute's more direct, she sits his ass down and has him watch as many true crime stories of women getting kidnapped, SA, tortured, and murdered as she can find. Usually she picks ones based off the names you drop. He really only has to hear 4 or 5 before it sinks in. (Tiktok reminded me of the girl who was tortured to death for 45 days and assualted with lit fireworks so, have that fresh horror in your minds).

Tell him about any personal experiences you had and how terrifying it is to be a woman or queer. Show him the responses to the man or the bear question. Let him fully realize how many people, people he knows as strong and capable, would rather face the bear because "the worst the bear can do is kill me". Or "Nobody accuses me of liking being attacked by a bear"

"No one asked me what I was wearing when the bear attacked"

"People would actually believe me if I said I was attacked by a bear."

"The bear sees me as a person."

"The bear lives in the woods, the man probably followed me."

Each answer is gonna send a new shiver down his spine.

Reforming Adam isn't an easy or fast process but it's fully possible because I don't think he's bad or a fullblown narcissist. I think he's been told his entire existence that he's a good guy, a pinnacle of creation, someone to be admired and obeyed without question.

You could argue he may be a bit controlling and narcissistic because of how he treated Lillith and requested a submissive wife with Eve. And I don't think he's ever not going to be full of himself and expect his ideal partner to be a bit more traditional in the sense that they're a housewife/domestic type. But he also likes people who go out and have fun, can get wild, and he definitely thinks it's hot if you can defend yourself even if it strokes his ego if you let him do it.

But overall, I think with enough time, patience, and exposure Adam could become a better person. Probably the type who would throw hands with himself if he could. Definitely becomes the type to start borderline hating other men.

[transmascposi]

I feel really isolated because I hardly see any trans masculine positivity posts,,,, The only posts I see,, that are even shared by my own friends,,, are those that are complaining about trans mascs and how we're evil, ugly, and ruining the trans community,,,, I don't know what I did wrong besides simply exist as a trans masculine person,,, I still face misogyny and now I'm facing transphobia from my own friends,,, I even had to block somebody who said 'I have never found trans males to be sexually attractive' and instead of people telling them that's transphobic everyone was agreeing with them,,, I don't know where to turn anymore because everyone hates trans men so badly,,,, plus it's interesting that ppl will say how much they hate trans men but then fetishize our bodies,,,

I feel you. It's so lonely and difficult sometimes. It can feel like the whole world hates you. But I promise it's not like that. There's a lot of people who love us, really.

I'm sorry this is happening to you. You didn't do anything wrong. And even if you did, it wouldn't justify this treatment. You are valid and amazing and you bring so much beauty to the world and to the queer community. I had to cut off a few internet friends who hated on trans men and I don't regret it one bit. If they hate trans masculine people, I suggest cutting these people off. They are not good friends to you.

My advice is to try to spend less time online. The hate is much more concentrated here, and it's much more openly vicious. We certainly do have bad things happening to us in real life, but from my experience at least, the hate online is on another level. There are encounters that we can't really prevent in real life, but you can control the majority of your interactions online. I suggest avoiding the hate as much as you can, even if it means not spending time on your favorite platform. It can seem like I'm stating the obvious and I probably am, but at the same time, when I struggled a lot with online hate on trans mascs, I would keep spending time in trans masc spaces on tumblr that are full of this hate. I think we have the tendency to dwell in the hate, for whatever reason. To reblog it to argue with it, to keep repeating the same points to people who don't care about the truth, to try to counter the lie that trans mascs have it easy by witnessing the hate as a getcha. I'm not saying that you do this necessarily, but I definitely did it.

My second advice is to go out and meet people who understand and support you. A wonderful way to do that is activism. If you can, join your local trans activist group! You don't have to have inspiring speeches on big podiums and argue with people. You can help with small practical tasks — those people are very much needed and appreciated! Or you can find your local queer events and go there. It can be intimidating at first, especially if you go alone, but there's always someone a little bit lost at these events. People get it. Again, it definitely can be very difficult, but try to talk to some trans people there. Or anyone, really. You will find out that there's a lot of people who support and get us. And people who might not fully understand yet, but they want to try and they want to help. Even these imperfect encounters will warm your heart enough to forget a little about all the hate, even just for a moment. And being in activist circles and hearing people say your exact thoughts out loud — oh man it's SO satisfying. These people don't even have to be your friends. I'm trying to be an activist and there are people who I have fun with and who give me a sense of community — yet I don't meet them outside of activism stuff because I know we aren't a good match to be friends. And yet, their existence in my life brings me a lot of warmth. Building community is the key, really.

I wish you the best of luck and strength and I hope you will feel better soon.

[flavoredfaeman]

Okay making my own long post so that I can get out all my thoughts clearly

So to start off 1. I think that queer baiting is a completely useless term, in part because all it is used for is arguing whether or not something is queer enough (in part because queerbaiting is an incredibly rare phenomenon in western media), 2. I think that the way male queerness is treated in Deadpool is unfortunate, and 3. Gay people are allowed to find joy in goofy movies and it isn't that serious.

**this is all my opinion, a lot of these topics are up to personal interpretation just like with any other movies or media discussion (I am trying to also cover multiple perspectives here, but I am only one person)

Let's get one thing clear right off the bat, no one who is familiar with marvel and disney actually thought that Deadpool and Wolverine were going to kiss/fuck nasty/become an item. (Those were jokes guys.) Those of us who were hoping for queerness were hoping for some subtext at most or the Deadpool-typical type jokes where he smacks a guy's ass, makes a quippy comment and moves on. And within that context of expectation, we were given way more than we expected.

Now, I will say that it is absolutely sad that we can have these movies with gay jokes, but that actually portraying queer characters seems to be too much for them. As is typical (to my knowledge) of bigger movies, they were allowed to make a side lesbian couple (this is a much larger topic, but for the purposes of this conversation, let me add on: cishet men think lesbians are hot + women are not considered to be able to have "real" relationships without men. So they can get greenlit a bit easier.), but Deadpool is not allowed to have meaningful connections to other men.

Deadpool's jokes about gayness can be interpreted in different ways. To some people, they feel hurtful and deriding. To others, they are the jokes made by a man who is comfortable in his identity, and who makes jokes to take power away from people who may want to use his queerness against him. It's really hard to argue this one way or the other, since Deadpool isn't a real person who we can ask to clarify. As such, how one feels about these jokes usually sits within the context of how they view Deadpool and the movies in general. Personally, I think that these jokes are meant to shock audiences, but I don't think they are actually intended to be hurtful. Especially when the funny part of most of the jokes is when he is making them, not that it's gay. Like, straight or gay, it's funny to talk about sex in a really emotional/tense moment, or in the middle of a fight. Particularly when you see how he treats the other queer people around him, not to mention, you know, the fact that he's canonically pansexual. (Frankly I find it kinda weird to go "aah there's a queer man making jokes about being a queer man!! How terrible!!" but that's my prerogative)

From movie 2 to 3 there does seem to be a change in how queerness is being treated. A positive change, in my opinion. Because Deadpool isn't making all that many jokes in this one, he's got a few for sure (Wolverine has one or two as well!!) but a lot of what he's doing is becoming genuinely close to Wolverine. This shifts the dynamic, now it's not just Deadpool making gay jokes or advances to people who don't really reciprocate (to my memory, though I feel like Colossus may have flirted back at like the end of Deadpool 2?), instead the jokes are being reciprocated/responded to and the characters are being put on even ground. Wolverine is a realized character, just like Deadpool, so they are able to grow closer over the course of the movie, and form an actual connection and bond. (Also a lot of the gay jokes become "wow isn't wolverine so hot?" jokes)

Important to also add that yes, they do start the movie with a very fraught and tense relationship, they are both very violent characters, Wolverine has crazy anger issues, and Deadpool makes everything a joke. All of these things are important to their characters and story! If you took some of those early interactions out of context you could argue that Wolverine isn't reciprocating or something of the like, but that would require ignoring the majority of the film. They are kinda crazy and impervious characters who have opposite personalities in a high stakes setting, of course they are going to fight and try to harm one another.

As much as it's already been talked to death, it is genuinely important to discuss the metaphors in this movie. Because as funny as the Honda jokes are, that scene is heavily implied to be a sex scene. This is the art of film, what you cannot show the viewer, you must convey some other way. The fight happens to You're The One That I Want, they repeatedly stab intimate places (stabbing as metaphor for penetration), the way they position themselves in the car and through themselves at each other, and the camera panning towards the bumper as the car shakes (a classic fade to black sex move). This is all movie language, and it is vital to understanding what a movie is portraying.

The climax is also very important in this regard, because as camp as it is, they were willing to die for each other and in that willingness they were able to save each other. Like A Prayer is playing, they are holding hands, when Wolverine's shirt explodes Deadpool takes a moment to oggle him despite the fact that they're both getting absolutely electrocuted or whatever.

Now, despite all of this absolutely beautiful subtext, Deadpool and Wolverine do not get together. That is absolutely an important part of this conversation, their relationship is ultimately left ambiguous. But a queer man being in a homoerotic ambiguous relationship with another man, does not a queer bait make.

Vanessa is an important part of this discussion of course - though to preface this, I find their relationship really boring so I don't really remember a lot of what happened between them in the first movie. Deadpool is canonically pansexual, so his relationship with any woman does not make him any less queer. Though, it could be argued that she's been kept around as a character to make sure he's always in or longing for a straight relationship.

Some people have been arguing that the movie ends with Deadpool getting back together with her, which blatantly does not happen. They were in a weird stage of exes being friends at the start of the movie, where she was in a new relationship, and he was still pining. All he does at the end of the movie is go over to her to let her know he cares about her, which could be romantic or platonic - but IS NOT them getting together. And again - even if he still is in love with her by the end of the movie, he is still queer.

In addition, I don't think that Deadpool is monogamous. He's constantly flirting and showing interest in many different people. Now I don't remember if he ever has a conversation with Vanessa about monogamy, so I could be missing an important part of their dynamic. But as it stands to my knowledge, Deadpool being in love with Vanessa doesn't mean he's not in love with Wolverine.

Both of these potential relationships end in the air. And of the two (if we assume monogamy is important) Vanessa said she had a boyfriend, and Wolverine just moved into Deadpool's apartment. So Wolverine is in a much better position to end up with Deadpool than Vanessa is.

It's also good to note that everything we got in this movie was fought tooth and nail for by Ryan Reynolds and the movie's team. There is every chance that Deadpool and Wolverine's relationship would not be implied but rather outright in a world where studio opinions don't matter.

Everything that I've just described is not queerbaiting. A movie with queer people in it canonically, is not queerbaiting. Queerbaiting is when media sells a character/relationship as queer in order to get an audience and then tells that audience that they are not actually queer (usually done incredibly insultingly, think Sherlock). Marvel and Disney do not need to market towards queer people to get an audience, in fact marketing towards queer people is more likely to lose fans, and gain hate. It's also important to note that the marketing hasn't been marketing these two as queer, they aren't almost kissing in material, the cover is a friendship charm, the most they do is address the fact that Wolverine/Hugh Jackman is hot af. So it literally isn't queerbaiting.

Now, whether or not someone is disappointed in the level of queerness is completely up to the individual! Everyone is welcome to their opinions and feelings about the movie, disappointed or delighted. But a movie is not queerbaiting just because you are disappointed.

[genderqueerdykes]

i love you so much i love the way u talk abt trans men and our struggles i makes me feel so seen especially bc youre older than me, i want to be understood , keep posting please

THANK YOU !!

i appreciate that. i feel like nobody (aside from some very cool bloggers on here) is advocating for trans men anymore. like unless its a trans man talking about these issues, it just doesn't happen. nobody advocates on our behalf for the most part. everyone just leaves us to the weeds. we have to help each other because most people just don't even understand what trans men and mascs want. like it's absolutely positively insanity inducing

when i was in college, at my pride group, there were just. no conversations about trans men. at all. in fact. at the time i was beginning to realize i was a trans man but i couldn't find support or acknowledgement of transmasculinity anywhere. whenever i would participate in the conferences, and large group meetings for LGBTQ communities in our part of the country... I was forced into queer women's groups. i did not identify as a woman or bigender at that time. i asked them where a female-to-male genderqueer person should go, and they put me in every queer women's group. i was not being considered trans. i was being viewed as a cis butch lesbian.

i was fucking pissed.

i learned the word transgender and what it meant and the example that was given was male to female, which was informative. i heard a lot of things about feminine transition, drag queens, cis gay male culture, bisexuality, pansexuality, and even asexuality. i want you to know that my college's pride group in 2011 - 2012 was more accepting of asexual people than trans men, which is insane for that time frame. i was actually allowed to help with a presentation on asexuality

i had to go online and research trans men, though. there were none to be found in the group that were at least out and able to talk to each other. we were all very stealth and nervous. my long term friends there ended up being gay men, lesbians, and a transfem agender person. i never met a single trans man there. it was heartbreaking.

i am tired of participating in transmasculine silence. i will not participate in self-erasure. trans men are trans. we're men. we're mascs. we NEED support, community, and care. we need to learn how to access transition resources, to comfort each other, to laugh with each other, to help each other find what clothes make us feel like ourselves, to say each other's names and pronouns, to see one's self in the other.

we need people who will protect us from misgendering. we need to be able to talk about our unique issues. we need to be able to talk about how yes, we experience misogyny, but also that transandrophobia is literally a thing. we need people who will stand up for femme trans men and gay trans men. we need people who understand that it's not okay to call every single trans man a confused butch lesbian and assume that they're a queer cis woman. trans men can be butch lesbians and that's okay. but you can't rip away a trans man's manhood for the sake of being a catty asshole. it's misgendering. it's transphobia. care about being transphobic. transphobia hurts all trans people no matter where it's directed. we all lose when you opt to deny trans men and mascs the right to community.

i am transmasculine. i am a trans man. i love being a trans man. i'm not ashamed. i'm not going back in the closet. i love my transmasculine brothers and siblings. i will not silence them. silencing them is a disservice to us all. i refuse to do that to us.

thank you for sending this ask. stay safe, take care of yourself, you're an important part of the LGBTQ community, don't let anyone take that from you.

[trans-androgyne]

I don't really do this like at all but I have no idea where else to express my frustrations and dejection. This is pretty negative so no need to even read it but If you do I really appreciate it. I'm a transmasculine teenager and I remember first coming to tumblr from reddit cause I heard there was more transmasculine folks here and I was like waooww! Sounds great. I expected cool memes or positivity or representation just something I could relate to because I genuinely hated myself for being trans, so much. Can't come out at school, can't transition for like another four years, can't entirely come out to family either, so I can seek solace online. Now tumblr has become by #1 doomscroll site and I hate myself more than ever for newer reasons. Wooow. And this time it's coming from other queer people and it feels worse than anything I read from a genuine right-wing bigot. I keep feeling like my existence is just irrational and misogynistic and hopeless. I don't know how to feel any better about my identity as a transgender male.

Gods, I've been in really similar spots, I'm so sorry. Seeing the same old vitriol from cis transphobes is one thing. But when I stumbled into the discourse about transmascs on here, feeling that hated and rejected by my fellow queer and trans people pushed me to the brink of detransitioning. There are two main ways I pushed through that.

The first was to focus on other transmascs. Sure, I can hate myself for "choosing the wrong side" or whatever, but would I ever, ever say that about another transmasc? I wouldn't. I would never tell them half the stuff I believed about myself. It became clear to me that queer masculinity, especially trans masculinity and manhood, gets pushback both from inside and outside the queer community that it does not deserve. One's gender and gender presentation does not relate to their morality. Queer masculinity is beautiful and radical, no matter what anyone tries to tell you, and I let myself fall in love with it and engage in it out of spite. Even if I couldn't accept it on myself, I committed myself to letting other transmascs out there know that I believed their transmasculinity made the world a better place. After a while, it was a little easier to feel that way about myself too. I still get insecure about it, but I can always lean on other transmascs and transmasc allies about it.

That's the second strategy. I felt so isolated and alone as a transmasc, especially when we were being blamed for predstrogen being banned, that I ended up making a discord server centered on trans men and mascs. I've gotten so many friends and even two new partners out of that! It turns out that there are plenty of people who love transmasculinity even if they aren't transmasc themselves. An example is my trans femme S.O. who loves me being her transmasc stone butch and praises my masculinity constantly :) I suggest to all transmascs ever to surround themselves with as many people as they can that see the value of transmasculinity and don't hold bigoted beliefs about transmascs (because yes, believing that we're all annoying and attention-seeking and self-centered and misogynistic is bigoted). My server is always open if that might help you, but other spaces are out there as well. Just know you deserve to be supported in your identity and there are plenty of people who would give you that support. You are always, always, always welcome in my inbox, or DMs, or anywhere else. Please reach out if I can be of any help.

[ihopesocomic]

It's such a shame how many good brother-brother duos or sister-brother duos there are compared to sister-sister duos

I know it stems from writers always feeling the need to add a man in every woman's life

A lot of writers can only make a character who's a sister if she's a sister to a brother and it's a real shame

Honestly I think Nothing from MP is a pretty good example of that

Look at her relationship with her female siblings/cousin vs her male siblings/cousin

Fire ended up being horrible and Feather is a toxic positive "lemme make you feel bad for wanting to change your ableist name even though it literally doesnt effect me" dirtbag

But Nothing had a better relationship with vs her younger sisters/cousins

Farleap and Silentstalk bullied her and Feather's sisters thought she was weirdo though they like literally never interacted

It's just always suspicious when a writer seems to prioritize a female character's relationship with guys over her relationship with girls

Like their gender shouldn't matter but they'll always pick their male characters first

The sexism in writing still to this day is wild. Especially where so-called independent creators are concerned. Because I thought the whole point of being indie was creating stuff you wanted to see in mainstream media but didn't get, but a lot of it is just more of the same crap you get from bigger productions. So either people want more sexism, or its just baked into their brain and they don't even realize it.

A lot of better stories out there are about brothers (well, I could argue that a lot of it is lazy and that there is no point to the characters being brothers, especially when strong emotional friendships between men are practically nonexistent in media.) and anything having to do with sisters is as I said, either petty nonsense or there's no point to being sisters at all.

And then there's as you said, an inherent need by creators for women to have men be relevant in their lives when that same standard is not applied to men. You can throw a rock and hit a movie or show with a female pov where her only motivation has to do with a man. Father, son, brother, husband, boyfriend, abuser. Whatever.

That's not to say any of these are bad stories. But when its the majority of supposed woman-focused media, it loses its edge as woman-focused when the women in question are focused on men. The writers either consciously or subsconsciously don't get that women have motivations beyond men. This even happens with lesbian characters, where men should have even less relevancy? LOL And it doesn't even matter who the writers are, whether they're men/women, cis/trans, straight/gay, everyone does this. You'd expect better from queer creators but even then there's a clear preference. And they're wont to bring up that "gender shouldn't matter" but only when it pertains to asking why they're so opposed to women being the focus. Its quite interesting.

MP is in an interesting position of hating both men and women at the same time while not commenting on how the patriarchy has negative effects on both men and women. Not an easy feat but Tribble sure made it look easy. She made Feather Nothing's prime motivator for leaving the pride, and while I have my own criticisms of Nothing's "subtle" motherlyness towards Feather, that wasn't extended to the female cubs. Fire is Nothing's other motivation for leaving the pride, and then he turned out to be a wannabe dictator. Quickmane was shown to be a sympathetic and caring mate who definitely wasn't homophobic, but had no qualms about killing children. And then there's alllllll the women who are meant to be oppressed to the same extent as Nothing, but they all somehow manage to be even worse because the narrative wants us to side with them.

And even Nothing's abusive relationship with Quickmane as we've stated in our review is arguably less fucked up than the relationship she has with her own mother. Because we know what they think about each other, and Powerstrike still insists that Nothing's existence is a burden on her soul or whatever. Like what the fuck is up with that?? I'm sure they could've made Powerstrike less-bad than Quickmane, was this some sort of weird equalizer of the sexes? And you can count Nothing's relationship with Sharptongue if you're so inclined to, but even if you ignore everything else she did, Sharptongue would still be the only positive female influence in Nothing's life. But not a key motivator in Nothing's story. Like not even a little bit.

[angelsdean]

I know it's a bitter pill to swallow in this fandom for many reasons but, the phrase "open to interpretation" IS inherently a positive phrase that good creators use to affirm to their audiences that stories and art belong to the fans, and that every fan is able to find their own meaning through their own interpretive lens. It's not up to creators or actors to tell people what something--especially ambiguous or subtextual moments--mean. Everyone will come to a different understanding, some views might be more supported by canon than others, but it's still within every viewer's right to see things how they see them.

All "open to interpretation" means is: you get to interpret it! And you! And you! This is a key tenant of any creative work. It can be interpreted. And that is what literary analysis is all about. You build a case for your interpretation. You go into the text and find supporting evidence for your view, your thesis. And some interpretations are argued better than others. But everyone's still allowed to have their interpretation. (Also, literary analysis is fun).

I say all this because I've seen posts about Jensen going from "open to interpretation" to "clear text" as if he's now against the fact that things can and will be interpreted by fans. In terms of Cas's declaration of love? Yes, that is "clear text." It's romantic in nature, that's not up for debate, and Dean processed and understood it as romantic on the dungeon floor. But for stuff that is still ambiguous, still subtextual in some ways, like Dean's own feelings? Those are still open to interpretation by all sides, whether we like it or not. Until we get to see more of Dean and Cas's story in the basically guaranteed reboot, Jensen is not going to speculate about Dean's feelings or Destiel's reunion. He's never going to word-of-god confirm anything about this on stage at a convention. We have to wait to see it play out on screen.

As an actor, it's also not his place to confirm or deny these things. He leaves it up to the fans to read into his performance whatever they want. And yes, that sentiment IS affirming to a Destiel interpretation. We can read reciprocation into his performance. We can read romantic love into his words about Dean wishing he'd said "I love you back." We can look back on the years of queercoding and subtext and Jacting Joices and read Dean as being in love with Cas for years. And, well, the other side can read what they want into it, and we don't need to care what they think, tbqh.

This, IMO, is also part of the reason Jensen tends to give "vague" answers or use language that can be perceived in different ways by either side. As an actor, at a fan convention where fans of all sides of the fandom have paid to be there to have a good time, it's not his job to personally validate specific headcanons and interpretations. Jensen may have his own personal beliefs about Dean's feelings, but he's not going to divulge them in full if they close off one side's interpretation. So he will weave his way through answers. He will use terms like "brother in arms" which one side will hear as simply "brother" and think "platonic" and Destiel shippers will hear as the full meaning, a strong bond between men, and see the queer history associated with these warrior bonds.

He does this, IMO, to keep all lanes open for every fan, because first and foremost he's an actor at a convention being paid to entertain. He's also not a writer, he's not someone who can definitively say what was intended. Personally, I feel that his metaphor about being in an art gallery that he gave back in 2020 is incredibly apt. People come to the gallery and look at the art and find their own meaning. And the artist isn't standing there beside them confirming or denying their interpretations. That's not the artist's job. Once it's out there, it's for others to find meaning in what the artist made.

And again, it's not his place to speculate or write fanfiction for anyone on stage and personally confirm or deny headcanons. He's pretty adamant about the reboot, so I think for some things we'll just have to wait and see.

[kaija-rayne-author]

OMG I'm laughing so hard at someone calling me names because I dared post that I had to unfollow people who were toxicly positive about Veilguard and being twats about it to others.

Again, I'm truly happy for you if you liked it. I didn't. You shockingly don't have to be an asshole to others about it. Nor do you need to shit on something other people loved simply because checks notes, some stranger on the internet said that they didn't want to follow people being toxically positive about something you liked. Oooookay then. 🤣

It's a video game. A piece of entertainment. It's fiction.

If you get so worked up over someone else's (a strangers!) opinion that you're slinging ad hominem attacks, maaaaaybe it's time to I dunno, do literally anything else?

Especially trying to get any response but laughter or blocking out of someone like me who has lived through so much that if I talk about even a fraction of it, people go all owl eyed and universally ask in a quiet, shocked tone 'how are you even alive?'

Legit can't stop laughing. 🤣

Update

So, I freely admit that I'm in a bad mood and broke my rule about feeding the trolls. I shall do my due internet denizen duty and block/report.

In all responsibility, while laughing at a troll can be a good tool, it risks escalation, and it's really better to simply block and report. They get their jollies by making people feel horrible. (I wasn’t laughing out of trying to feed a troll BTW. They legitimately shocked me into laughing. I wasn't in a good enough mood to hide my reaction.)

They've either deleted or hidden their responses to me. It's just a crying shame that screenshots are forever. Y'all might want to preemptively block. Up to you.

If they hadn’t been so utterly awful, I'd probably have let it slide. But this behavior is unacceptable in a society.

Transcript since it won't fit in alt text.

Lilithfairen

So you're just a raging asshole who can't stand people enjoying a game you didn't. You should let people know that when you follow them so anyone with common sense can block you the moment they see you around.

Masked responder

That's not what OP said lmao

Me

Oh, honey. You're precious (laugh emoji) Go try to gaslight and sea lion someone else. In your vast amounts of time where you're not being a dick to a stranger, perhaps you should consider brushing up on that 'reading comprehension' thing. I gather it's not your highest skill. Maybe put a few skill points in that.

Me replying to masked responder

Right? (Laugh emoji) Just posting on my own wall, about a Fandom problem that they very clearly demonstrated an excellent example of, and *I'm* the asshole. I'm laughing so fucking hard I'm almost crying.

lilithfairen

Oh, not gaslighting anyone. Because a quick check tells me you're a BG3 stan, which highlights why you don't like Veilguard and the people who enjoy it. Veilguard doesn't write queer people as sexual predator. Veilguard doesn't get off on victimizing non-white people or writing them as innately evil and savage. Veilguard doesn't write a storyline where a goddess is a prop to paint a white guy as awesome and smart and then written as a horrible bitch herself. You're a garbage shitstain of a person who can't stand Veilguard not being a game written for straight white manbaby sensibilities, because you think that's what good fiction is.

Me. Oh, do please keep responding (laugh emoji) you're amusing me and exposing your ignorance nicely. Have you considered therapy? It might help with that whole ... hatred of everyone who isn't me... thing, you have going on. I actually can't stop laughing at the loads of shit you're shoveling. I hope you're getting a decent wage for that. Shoveling shit is hard work.

I did say I wasn't in a good mood.

Anyway... because I'm me... pretty sure a lot of people who play Dragon Age games also play BG3. And liked both. It's not an either or. People can shockingly like both! While accepting that there's no such thing as a perfect game/book/movie/show/anything.

I know several people I'm on good terms with who absolutely loved Veilguard. I didn't, but it's not their problem. I don't make it their problem.

Veilguard doesn't write queer people well. Period. (I'm a queer AF author and editor.)

"Doesn't get off on victimizing non-white people or writing them as innately evil and savage." *blinks*. 'Who do we put across from Harding for a death choice. "Assan."' -John Epler (Not the whole Black man attached to the bloody griffin. The griffin.) That doesn't even get into what having the only Black male companion being part of that choice in the first place says. (Pssst. It's not good.)

Um... the Qunari have long been PoC coded and what they did to the Qunari in Veilguard is nothing short of writing them as innately evil and savage. Seriously? Truly shocked by that one. Taash's first romance scene is really problematic, too.

"A storyline where a goddess is a prop to paint a white guy as awesome?" Did they even play BG3? I've played it 5x and have no idea what they're on about there. And Vlakkith has always been a bitch. (I've been playing D&D since 2E. Is it problematic? Fuck yes.) I guess female and woman presumed people aren't allowed to be evil. Who knew?

Snorts. I'm not white, not a man, definitely not straight, and good fiction is my actual job.

As far as the ad hominem attacks. (Sad head shake) Dirthara-ma, da'len.

All that in response to this post of mine.

[anxietycheesecake]

The lack of media literacy in this fandom is wild.

They basically said 'in your wildest dreams, here's a scenario that could have been the ending. And to highlight just how much this couldn't or didn't happen, here are two other endings that couldn't possibly happen' and people somehow came to the conclusion that this scene was remotely canon when it was the exact opposite.

It was imperative to somebody that the show fully clarifies that Nandor and Guillermo do not and will not fuck. They need the audience to know that and The Guide was once again used as a wedge to drive home that Nandor and Guillermo are platonic and only platonic. Nandor finds The Guide physically attractive and is romantically attracted. Whether his motivations are selfish and would fizzle upon realization is irrelevant because it's canon that he is into her and if you drew a venn diagram with his feelings for The Guide and Guillermo, there would be little overlap. That was the entire purpose of Guidmor this season and nearly the only purpose The Guide served. Friends, best friends, partners, in love with The Guide - they are circling this shit with a bright red marker.

And yeah, much of the direction they've taken on Nandor and Guillermo's relationship and taking jabs at shippers is because the fanart, fanfic, and general shipping made Simms uncomfortable and I'll die on that hill. The 'ick' is palpable in every one of those interviews where he says it wouldn't be profound enough, 'do people really want to see that? Really?' or that it would be problematic. They literally pivoted in the aftermath of season 3 and 4 because of the reception.

Tell me that in a world without social media, in a world where they didn't see how fans reacted, Nandor and Guillermo's relationship would have played out as it did. Tell me that it was in good faith and not damage control. Tell me they didn't want to kill that narrative while not losing viewership.

Tell me that this isn't the very manifestation of queer content being fun until it's more than a joke.

It's actually okay to be hurt if you create fan content and it makes a homophobic person uncomfortable, instead of telling yourself that couldn't possibly be how a showrunner, writer, or company really feels about something you care about and have invested in. It's a hard, shitty thing, especially when they dangled that ship to the point of using 'Nandermo' in promotional material. It's okay for others to be upset by this and have a myriad of personal or impersonal reasons for being offended, sad, angry. Our reaction isn't an attack on fans who are satisfied, and you don't have to rationalize an ugly truth when somebody is in the wrong and hurting real people. Simms is the one in a position of power here, not fans on Tumblr. He can absolutely steamroll the writers and actors on this if he wants to, and it can be seen in interviews, such as the one with Stefani. As I said in my previous ask, Harvey is a real gay person who has to smile and nod while his boss repeatedly uses these talking points to delegitimize gay relationships right in front of him like we're in the early 2000s.

Fuck that shit. This conduct is appalling and you have every right to be disgusted.

Thank you so much, bestie, the gaslighting got me thinking I was insane. Like good for people who are satisfied, but I think you should be able to see the whole picture beyond your own feelings. If nandermo had gone canon and everything else was the exact same, I'd complain about the lack of proper development and closure for everyone else, while being ecstatic for my beloved blorbos. Because you can aknowledge when shitty things happen even if you personally find them gratifying.